kent lee's blog & ramble

Here's the transcript of my talk at the 세바시 on Freedom from English. This is an approximate transcript that I prepared for my talk, so that they could provide Korean subtitles for listeners. My delivery was kind of unnatural and sometimes not so fluid, because I had to give my speech from a memorized script. Freedom from English I remember several years ago, I was at a bus stop near 왕십리 [Wangshimni], when some high school boys came up to me, wanting to practice English. But as they opened their mouths, all they could say was, “Hi... I like kimchi... I love you” - and then walked away quickly, giggling, and embarrassed. Sadly, they studied English in school for many years, yet they could not say anything meaningful – just a few simple, awkward phrases, not knowing that it is not appropriate to say “I love you” to stranger. I often hear of how Koreans spend so much time, so much effort and so much money on studying English, but with such poor results. In fact, English has beco...

Alas! My talk has been posted on Youtube. I gave this talk at 세바시 a month ago, on "Freedom from English." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9f0692r_dg&feature=plcp I talk about how English education has become such an obsession in Korea, that it has actually become a form of bondage. This speech describes the difficulties and misconceptions of learning English as a second language, the motivational problems that are prevalent here, and some steps to freedom. I hope your friends can be blessed by it. Later I'll post a transcript of the talk. 

Last Monday I got to give a talk at a public speaking event known as the 세바시, or 세상을 바꾸는 시간 15분 at the KT Hall in Mokdong. It is organized by CBS (the Korean Christian Broadcasting Service), and is one of their secular programs; it is modeled on the TED conferences. It will air on the CBS TV cable channel in three weeks [see http://www.change15min.com, facebook.com/cbs15min ], and immediately thereafter it will be posted on their Youtube channel [ youtube.com/cbs15min] . I don't want to brag about this (which is why I'm posting this on Google+, as I only know two people in the world who currently use Google+). Rather, I want to thank God for this opportunity, and hope that others may be blessed by the talk. That's because my talk is about 'Freedom from English'. I talked about how English has become such an obsession and a burden for Koreans, which is actually an emotional and spiritual bondage, which hinders them from learning English in any meaningful, ...

Well, it's been a while. More to come. My old Hanyang sites are down, since I moved to Korea University two years ago. All of my course materials and ESL materials have been moved to my main website, which actually runs off my Dropbox account, and is referenced by two URL shortcuts: www.tinyurl.com/kentlee7 or www.bit.ly/kentlee7 The above site contains ESL materials, writing materials, course materials, and education related materials. I have also opened a Youtube channel under the name kentlee7 [http://www.youtube.com/user/kentlee7]. I have a few of my KU materials there, mostly education related seminars. Hopefully I will create some ESL videos to help Koreans with English, maybe in the future. I still have my website for my old Bible study materials from my grad school days: www.tinyurl.com/enseoul

I've got a new website up with my pedagogical materials, writing materials, and a few ESL materials, reflecting the work that I do at the Center for Teaching & Learning at Korea University. www.tinyurl.com/kentlee7 I've also got some ESL and linguistics materials on my old Hanyang Univ. site: http://world.hanyang.ac.kr/~kentlee/app/ [phonology] http://world.hanyang.ac.kr/~kentlee/rw/spring2009.htm [reading / writing] http://world.hanyang.ac.kr/~kentlee/tmag/ [teaching methods] http://world.hanyang.ac.kr/~kentlee/slr/ [language research methods] I've found a new website to host my older Bible study materials (from my time at ICCF, Illini Chinese Christian Fellowship): www.tinyurl.com/enseoul Enjoy...

Most of my ESL files didn't get uploaded correctly, but I've fixed most of it. The course handouts and stuff should be there on my ESL site . I'm still working on the links to old course pages and resource pages. Two cute online videos I found recently: " Baby got Bible " song, and " Puppy vs. stairs ". BTW, folks, if you need to email me, it's best to use my Gmail account. The UI mail system, I've found, is unreliable. I've found that from time to time, emails to me or sent by me have simply been lost. I even emailed myself once, and it never arrived in my inbox! I'm afraid that someone may have tried to email me in the past, maybe even something important, and I never received it. If so, please email me via Gmail.

I let my old web domain [klee7.com] expire last year, as I was too busy to maintain it. I've wanted to repost some materials, but had trouble finding the files, and was too busy to do so. But now I've finally found them and made them available. [Update: New link for Bible study materials as of Sept. 2011.] 1) www.tinyurl.com/enseoul Bible studies I used to do at the Illini Chinese Christian Fellowship, 1997-2005. 2) ESL materials . My old ESL materials from my old ESL days - materials I made for teaching ESL at UIUC and Korea University [composition / writing, grammar, pronunciation, listening-speaking...]. 3. [Update, Sept. 2011] New website for academic materials - writing, EAP, pedagogy at www.tinyurl.com/kentlee7 . Hopefully most of the links work, but please report any broken links you see. And this is still only a temporary site for a year. When I leave this place and get a real job, I'll have to find another home for these files.